ENGL 100 Final Project, Fall 2005
This page includes the assignment sheet for the final project. My goal is to make this page as useful to you as possible, so let me know if it can be improved. If anything is badly worded, unclear, or missing, please contact me with constructive criticisms and suggestions. Thanks.
As you know, you are required to do a five-to-seven-page problem-solution essay and 15-to-25-minute team presentation based on your team's essays for the final project, each worth 15% of your final grade in the course. The essay should be based on the research you did for individual research task 4 (see the Blackboard site for details as well as the main page's schedule of assignments); the team presentation shoul be based on your team report and the individual final essays of the team members. You will have the opportunity to revise the final essay and have the grade on the revision replace the original grade. Your presentation must be to a local or campus group or organization; you must either videotape it or invite me to attend.
Assignment Sheet: Final Essay
Due: A hard copy must be turned in during class on Wednesday, November 30, 2005.
Genre/Topic/Goal: The final essay is a problem/solution essay. The topic of the final essay is open. The goal is for you to define an urgent problem facing humanity in the twenty-first century, convince your audience of its importance/significance, survey possible solutions to it, and make an argument as to which (combination of) solution(s) we should pursue. In other words, you should choose a topic that you believe a significant number of people in your and your children's generations will face as a pressing problem, one which we were able to ignore or downplay or deny or delay dealing with in the twentieth century but which will become unavoidable in this century. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
Format: 5-7 pages, double spaced, with reasonable fonts, font sizes, and margins (be warned that barely getting on to the third sheet of paper does not a three-page paper make!); title that indicates main argument of paper; heading that includes your name, the course name or number, and the date; format, bibliography, and citations in MLA style (see the links page for explanations and examples of MLA style; proper quotation format in body of paper.
Criteria for Evaluation: Your grade for this essay will be determined by the coherence and validity of the paper's arguments (quality of definition of problem, persuasiveness in assessing its importance/significance, quality of the possible solutions surveyed, and persuasiveness in arguing for why your proposed solution is the best), the effectiveness of the paper's structure in conveying your ideas and convincing your audience, and the quality of the paper's prose (including grammar, syntax, punctuation, and formatting), as well as the relevance, range, and reliability of the sources you researched.
Audience: Anyone you can get to care about the topic you've chosen.
Draft Policy: I would be happy to offer brief comments on your drafts, so long as you get me them to me before you leave for Thanksgiving Break.
Rewrite Policy: You may revise the essay based on my comments and additional research/analysis/consideration done for the team presentation. This revision must be turned in no later than 5 pm Friday, December 16, 2005--before the end of exam week. Your grade on the revision will replace the grade on the original paper and you will get a bonus in your preparation/participation/team work grade as well.
Assignment Sheet: Final Team Presentation
Due: Must be scheduled between our return from Thanksgiving Break and the end of exam week. Our regular classroom is reserved for teams' use on Monday, December 12, 2005, from 6:15-8:15 pm. You must consult with me and Joyce Harvard Smith (smithjh@fredonia.edu) in scheduling your presentation.
Topic/Goal: The topic of your presentation will be a combination of the topics individual team members wrote about in their final essays. You will need to use both the essays turned in on 11/30/05 and the team report posted to the Blackboard site by 11/13/05 as the raw material for your presentation, which should be customized for your audience.
Audience: You need to choose a local or campus group or organization that you believe would be interested in and would benefit from your relative 'expertise' on the topic(s) you've researched and written on. Audiences could range from a middle or high school class to a campus group like Amnesty International or the women's basketball team to a local organization like a church or social club or library. You must consult with me and Joyce Harvard Smith before choosing and contacting your audience.
Format: You will have a half-hour for your presentation, of which a significant portion should be devoted to interaction with your audience. You should plan for a 15-to-25-minute presentation, keeping in mind that the longer you go the less time there will be for that interaction with your audience. You may use any combination of lecturing, multimedia, and activities to convey the urgency of the problem(s) you want to call attention to and the relevance of your proposed solutions.
Criteria for Evaluation: Your grade for this presentation will be determined by the content, organization, and clarity of the presentation as well as its relevance to and interest to your selected audience.